The 1% Club

I like the concept of this game but was bored with the filler moments. Apparently the producers wanted a show to cover an hour time slot when commercials are added. But 42-45 minutes is too much. If the filler time were reduce this could be 30 minutes per episode. It starts with the chatty talk with contestants. Plus they go back to the same people too much. They have 100 people sitting there and they concentrated on just a few too often. It got old before the end of the first episode. The rolling total for the jackpot is slow, just show the number. Also, the delays to try and add suspense get old too. For later episodes, I just press the 10 second advance to bypass the useless nonsense and stop when I get to the next question. Patton is fine as a game show host but it does seem too scripted. Rating: 10 stars for the game itself, 0 stars for the fillers...so make it 5 stars.

Patton Oswalt hosts this quiz show, which has 100 contestants vying for money.

The questions posed to the contestants get progressively more difficult. Missing a question means elimination, as the pot grows larger. The difficulty of the questions is determined by testing them on groups beforehand. But these are not questions of fact or tests of knowledge; they are designed to test one's abilities of perception and logic.

The major problem is that it is very difficult to design the wording of such questions without any ambiguity. For instance, one question asks the contestants to imagine that some letters are turned 45 degrees, but it does not say on what axis. And it uses the terms "left" and "right", but a clockwise orientation might be more accurate. This might not matter as much if contestants had a minute to consider their answers, but they only get about 25 seconds, which doesn't allow for much trial and error or testing of hypotheses.

The banter with the contestants is hit or miss. Sometimes it is interesting, but mostly it is boring, especially when Oswalt asks a contestant why they missed a question and they are embarrassed, so they give senseless excuses for their answers.

Update 7/16/2024: By episode 7, the banter has improved, with Patton showing his humor. The ambiguity has reduced somewhat. I am bumping my rating up by one.

I'm a big fan of this show and the only person I could think of who would be better than Patton Oswalt at hosting "1% Club" would be Louie DiPalma (heh heh heh). Oswalt got better each week in 2024 and upon seeing a new host blasted on us this year,I didn't have a good feeling. It turned out my suspicion was right on the mark.

Joel McHale talks like a phony,he gives off poor vibes for THIS show and I basically tuned out his between questions banter. It was a mistake going with a new host,imho.

The questions were interesting--as last year--and on the first episode of 2025,I managed to get to the 10% level. I give it a 6 rating--10 for the show and -4 for McHale.

Lee Mack of UK version is way funnier than Oswald (and still without being mean or snarky like host of Australian version). Questions on UK version are much better. More varied, interesting and fun, and more original ideas. American version questions are overloaded with boring wordplay puzzles. Many of the questions are word puzzle types that will be familiar to many people (and will give those people an advantage). Like a lot of game shows other than Jeopardy, there is a fair amount of filler, such as explanation of how the game works, and music that goes on too long before results are revealed.

My husband and I watched it and really enjoyed it. Our college-age son lives with us so the next day we asked him to watch it. THAT was so much more fun. He got every question right and we were so proud. Granted, there were some easy questions that everyone should have gotten right. I thought Patton was a great host. He spent just the right amount of time with the contestants so that you didn't feel isolated from them in that "I don't care who wins." way. I don't understand the reviewer who commented that the host was mean and put people down. I grew up with a narcissist and watched "Match Game" with Alec Baldwin so I know what putting people down sounds like. Patton was funny, friendly, and, yes, joked around but you can tell none of it was mean-spirited. I thought the questions were comparable to Celebrity Week on Jeopardy - where they dumb down the questions a bit, but you can solve them and feel smart. I hope the show makes it. We'd be regular watchers.